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Nokia Lumia 900 hands on review

The Lumia 800 gets shoved to one side as its 4G-toting American cousin steps into the CES limelight – and our hands

12 January 2012/1:03GMT

Nokia Lumia 900 – build

We're big fans of the Lumia 800's polycarbonate unibody design and the Lumia 900 is equally as sexy in both blue and matte black, without straying into iPhone clone territory. At 11.5mm thick, it's a smidgeon thinner than the Lumia 800 and the 4.3in screen trumps the 800's 3.7 incher. But the Lumia 900 does make for a larger Nokia smartphone meaning less pocket space.

Nokia Lumia 900 – screen

The Lumia 900's 4.3in AMOLED screen doesn't boast as high a resolution as some of the phones launched this week at CES – such as the LG Spectrum – but 800x480 is plenty of pixels to show off those lovely Windows Phone 7.5 Mango live tiles.

And with the new screen size, it's clear Nokia was listening when we grumbled that the big and bold OS should be given a bigger stage in our Lumia 800 hands-on. Nokia's thankfully kept the ClearBlack tech and Gorilla Glass for the Lumia 900's screen though.

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Nokia Lumia 900 – power and performance

Without spending some quality time with the Lumia 900 (which packs a 1.4Ghz single-core Scorpion processor), we won't know for sure if Stephen Elop was right to say that dual-core this and quad-core that isn't everything. But in both our hands-on and full Nokia Lumia 800 review, that lonely core coped just fine with browsing, apps and transitions.

Since the Lumia 900 will get 4G connectivity in the US, Nokia's chosen a massive 1840mAH battery for the handset but since we're stuck with 3G for the time being there's nothing for us to get too excited about just yet.

Nokia Lumia 900 – camera(s)

Alongside the 8MP rear facing camera – with Carl Zeiss optics, wide-angle lens and 720p video skills, as on the Lumia 800 – Nokia's added a 1.3MP front facer with wide-angle lens for video calls. We're nearly always impressed with Nokia's photo skills and the Lumia 900 was no exception – our shots of Nokia's CES stand came out clear and bright (no mean feat), with the shutter button speeding things up, and giving our premium compact a run for its money.

Having said all that, Nokia's not mentioned anything about releasing the Lumia 900 outside of the US so we'll just have to sit tight for word on an international rollout of one of the best-looking Windows Phone handsets we've seen yet.